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Sieur de Monts National 
Monument 



The White Mountain 
National Forest 



MCMXVII 



Published by 
THE WILD GARDENS OF ACADIA 



o 191? 



SI1^:UR D\i iXlONTS PUBLICATIONS 



XVII 



The Sieur de Monts National Monument 
and its Historieal Associations 




h. 



dp:partment of the interior 

FRANKLIN K. LANE, SECRETARY 

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 
STEr-HEN T. MATHER, DIRECTOR 




D. Of D« 

NOV '30 1317 



SIEUR DE MONTS NATIONAL MONUMENT 

George Bucknam Dorr. 

Custodian. 

The time is fast coming when National Parks and Forest 
Reservations, placesof beauty and refreshment within occasion- 
al reach by all, will be recognized as fmidamental needs, needs 
of the people, in om* national life. The West, aided by the 
Government's great ownership of lands, has led the way in 
this and shown its foresight. In the East, where gifts of land 
or purchases by the Government were necessary, the need has 
been longer in obtaining recognition, the first step toward 
meeting it by the establishment of a purely recreative area 
under the National Park Service being taken by the Secretary 
of the Interior last July, in recommending to the President 
the acceptance of the Sieur de Monts National Monument. 

This area, not a purchase by the Government but a gift 
from citizens, includes the mountainous and finest landscape 
portion of Mount Desert Island on the coast of Maine, whose 
crowning glor}^ in a resort and scenic sense that island is and 
has been for the last half century. 

Technically termed a Monument because created by the 
President and Secretar}^ of the Interior under the authority 
given them by the so-called Monuments Act of 1906 and 
because of its historic interest, it is by nature, beauty, and 
resort importance a true National Park in every popular 
sense and destined wlien developed to become one of the most 
widely visited and recreationally useful park areas on the 
continent. 

It cannot long stand alone in the East ; the human need for 
such areas of refreshment within reach of our great eastern 
cities and those of the fast-crowding lake and Mississippi 
regions is too serious for that. But it will in all likelihood 
remain unique forever as the one national park — using the 



word in its true, popular sense — bordering on the sea; 
and it must remain always supreme in landscape interest and 
refreshing quality upon our eastern coast. Beautiful as it is 
in other ways, this is its unique possession, that it is the only 
tract of national park land in the country offering to its visitors 
the refreshment, the ever- varying interest and beauty and the 
limitless expanses of the ocean — in contrast to the magnifi- 
cent domains of mountain lands, western or eastern, that its 
companion parks may offer. 

Because of this and the great human value of the tract as 
a recreational area, guarded in beauty and made free to all, 
it is felt that its name should be made indicative of its charac- 
ter and tell more plainly what it offers. To this end a bill, 
approved by the National Park Service, is being introduced 
in Congress by Senator Hale of Portland, Maine, familiar 
from boyhood with the beauty and resort importance of the 
region, asking that the name be changed from the Sieur de 
Monts National Monument to the Sieur de Monts National 
Park. A similar change is already planned in a conspicuous 
instance in the West, that of the Grand Canyon, a true park 
area in every popular sense, but technically temied till now a 
National Monument since created, like the Sieur de Monts, 
by act of the Administration. 

Physically, the Sieur de Monts National Monument is a 
bold range of seaward-facing granite hills, extraordinarily 
mountainous in character and wonderful in the variety, the 
interest and beauty of the climbs they offer. One only, but 
the highest, rising from the border of the ocean over fifteen 
hundred feet, offers opportunity for road construction. When, 
sooner or later, such a road — one by no means difficult to 
build — shall be constructed, restoring along a better route 
the old buckboard road which formerly led up to a hotel upon 
the summit, it will become at once, with modern motor travel, 
one of the great scenic features of the continent. As one 
ascends, superb views of land diversified by lakes and bays 
and stretching far away to distant hills, disclose themselves 
successively, and when one reaches the summit, the mag- 




SURF AT OTTER CLIFFS 



nificent ocean view that opens suddenly before one is a sight 
few places in the world can parallel. The vastness of the 
ocean seen from siich a height, its beauty both in calm and 
storm, and its appeal to the imagination yield nothing even 
to the boldest mountain landscape, while the presence of that 
cool northern sea, surging back and forth and deeply pene- 
trating the land with its great tidal flood, gives the air a stim- 
ulating and refreshing quality comparable only to that found 
elsewhere upon alpine heights. And as on alpine heights the 
herbaceous plants that shelter their life beneath the ground 
in winter bloom with a l:)rilliancy and flourish with a vigor 
rarely found elsewhere, so here the ocean presence and long 
northern days of summer sun combine with the keen air to 
make the gardens of the Island famous and the national park- 
lands singularly fitted to serve as a magnificent wild garden 
and plant sanctuary, at once preserving and exhibiting the 
native plants and wild flowers of the Acadian region which 
the Monument so strikingly represents. 

This native quality of the place is noted, ciniously, in 
Governor Winthrop's Journal, when he came sailing l)y one 
early summer day in 1630 on his way to Salem, bringing its 
Charter to the Massachusetts Colony whose Governor he was 
to be, and found "fair sunshine weather and so pleasant a 
sweet air as did much refresh us; and there came a smell 
from oft' the shore like the smell of a garden." 

As a bird sanctuary, too, these parklands, placed as they 
are directly on the great natural migration route of the 
Atlantic shore and widely various in favf)ral)le character, 
need proper guardianship only to become a singularly useful 
instrument in bird life conservation, while adding not a little 
through the presence of the birds to their own interest and 
charm. 

Geologically, the Monument, with its adjacent coastal 
rocks and headlands, forms a wonderful exhibit. Essentially, 
it is a bold and rugged group of granite peaks, immensely old 
though far less ancient than the primeval sea-laid rocks — 
hard, bent and twisted sands and clays — up througli which 



they are thrust. These peaks, geologists say, united into a 
single mass, once bore an alpine height upon their shoulders 
which looked across wide valley lands toward a distant sea. 
Time beyond count laid bare the mountain base, which the 
slow southward grinding of the ice-sheet later trenched into a 
dozen deeply isolated peaks. Between them, hollows, deeper 
than the present level of the sea in places, now contain a 
number of beautiful fresh-water lakes and one magnificent 
fjord which nearly cuts the island into two. Finally, owing 
to a general subsidence along the coast, the sea swept inland, 
flooding round the ice-eroded remnant of the ancient moun- 
tain to form the largest rock-built island on the Atlantic shore 
from the St. Lawrence southward, and its highest elevation. 

In places on the island's southern shore, the granite comes 
down to the ocean front, forming the boldest headlands and 
thrusting out to meet the sea's attack the grandest storm- 
swept rocks upon our coast; in other places, the enclosing 
sedimentary rocks, hardened by the enormous heat and pres- 
sure caused by the granitic upburst, oppose the ocean with 
dark, furrowed cliffs of difterent character but equally mag- 
nificent, in shine or storm. 

The whole Acadian region of eastern Maine, which the 
Sieur de Monts National Monument represents with rare 
completeness in a single tract of concentrated interest, is rich 
in delightful features, in forests, lakes and streams, and the 
wild life of every kind — plant, animal and fish ^ that haunts 
them. Its value as a vast recreative area for the whole nation 
to the eastward of the Rockies is even yet but little realized, 
although from the first opening of the fishing season in the 
spring to the close of hunting in the fall an immense tide of 
recreative travel streams continually through it. 

The new National Monument, and future Park as it will 
doubtless be, lies — with all the added beauty of the ocean 
and interest of historic association — close beside the main 
entrance to this region, where the Penobscot mingles its fresh 
water with the sea. From the Monument, delightful trips by 
train, by boat, by motor, may be made on every side — up 



and down the coast; to New Brunswick, Cape Breton and 
Nova Scotia; or to the magnificent lake and forest regions 
of the interior. And to it, one may come, as to no other 
national park area on the continent, by boat as well as train 
or motor. 

The chapter of world history which the Sieur de Monts 
National Monument commemorates, that of the first founding 
of Acadia, in 1604 — half a generation before the landing of 
the Pilgrim Fathers on the Massachusetts shore, and of 
the long French occupation of the Acadian region, extending 
from the Kennebec to Cape Breton, which followed it, is full 
of human interest as told in the pages of Champlain and Les- 
carbot in quaint old French, and by numerous later writers. 

De Monts, a Huguenot of noble family in southwestern 
France, came out commissioned by Henry IV ^ Henry of 
Navarre — to occupy for France, and colonize, ''the lands 
and territory called Acadia," extending, as it was then defined, 
from the 40th to the 46th degrees of latitude — those approxi- 
mately of Philadelphia and Montreal to-day; to establish 
friendly trade relations with its natives; to explore its coasts 
and rivers; to govern it, and represent in it and on its seas 
the person of the King; and to 1;)ring its people, "barbarous, 
and without faith in God," into knowledge and practice of 
the Christian religion. 

It was a great adventure, largely conceived and bravely 
carried out. De Monts planted the fleur-de-lis on the Amer- 
ican shore, and for more than a century and a half it stayed 
there. That it is not floating there to-day is due to forces 
greater than national, to the growth of the democratic spirit 
and democratic principles of government in the English 
colonies, which gave them an inherent power that mounted like 
a rising tide till it possessed and overflowed their continent, 
and is to-day profoundly influencing the world. 

De Monts himself, to say a word of him, was sprmig from 
one of the most ancient families in France, distinguished in 
arms and military employments from the time of the First Cru- 
sade, when fotir brothers out of six journeyed "beyond the Sea" 



and two remained there — killed in the storming of Jerusalem. 
True to the family traditions, his father, Jean de Monts, baron 
of Cabrairolles in Languedoc, near Beziers, served in the 
army "from his earliest youth," was successively Ensign or 
standard-bearer, Lieutenant, Captain of Arquebusiers, and 
finally "Mestre de Camp" in 1586, with five hundred standard- 
bearers under him. 

A Huguenot, he fought under Coligny in the defeat of 
Moncontour, then under Henry IV in the victories of Coutras 
and Ivry. He took part afterward in the capture of St. Denis 
and was wounded • — for the second time severely — at the 
siege of Eperney, in 1592, dying two years later of his wounds. 
He was a typical soldier of his time and station, one of those 
of whom Sismondi wrote: "The King (Henry IV) counted in 
his cavalry five thousand men of birth ( gentilshommes) whose 
courage was sustained by a personal sense of honor, and who 
were superior to all other cavalry." 

He married, on the 20th day of May, 1572, Delphine de 
Latenay, daughter of the noble Antoine, "ancien Capitaine," 
and of Marguerite de la Mairie. His oldest son, Jean, suc- 
ceeded him as baron of Cabrairolles. Pierre, his second son, 
who came out to America, was seigneur of Guast and governor 
of Pons, one of the Huguenot places of security established by 
Henry IV, who, Champlain tells us, had "great confidence in 
him for his fidelity and the good services he had rendered 
him in the (recent) wars." And governor of Pons he still 
remains, apparently, when we catch our last glimpse of him in 
Champlain's pages, after Henry's death, though the tide had 
then set strongly against the Huguenots, and Pons was pres- 
ently to be dismantled of its protecting walls by Henry's 
son, Louis XIII. 

Pons itself, its relation to the Huguenots and de Monts apart, 
is an interesting old city of the feudal times whose powerful 
lords, the Sires de Pons, were sovereign princes in their region, 
descended from^ the dukes of Aquitaine. They made war, 
signed treaties, and received the King of France as "cousin," 
claiming the sword he wore that day whenever they paid hom- 

13 




BIRCH WOODS AND FERNS UPON A GRANITE UPLAND 



age to him, which they did in full armor with their vizors 
down. Their castle was stormed by Richard Coeur de Lion 
in 1 1 79, and was surged around successively by French and 
English in the wars of Aquitaine. 

To-day the place is an attractive city still, with picturesque 
ruins of the old chateau and later buildings of the 15th and 
1 6th centuries, now used as a Hotel de Ville, which were 
de Monts' official residence no doubt when not across the 
sea. 

Delightful gardens, overgrown with roses, occupy in part 
the ancient castle site, with a stern old 12th century ''keep" 
beside them, while the castle chapel, of a later date, opens 
through a noble romanesque portal onto a lower garden. A 
clear river flows beneath, from whose vanished bridge of 
Roman empire date, the early city drew its name: Pons or 
"Bridge." It is an ancient land throughout, of ruins and rich 
pasturages and productive vineyards, to whose western Ijound- 
ary come the breezes, the salt air and breaking surf of the At- 
lantic, and from whose shore the waves stretch off" unbroken- 
ly toward America and the Acadian coasts. 

De Monts brought out to America with him, as lieutenant 
and cartographer, Samuel Champlain — his chronicler and 
fast friend thereafter — who, older than he by half a dozen 
years, was born in the little salt-gathering and exporting town 
of Brouage on the Bay of Biscay shore, not far from Pons and 
in a district subject to its lords. Near l)y was the mouth of 
the Charente — declared by Henry IV to l)e "the finest stream 
in the Kingdom" — with the ancient city of Saintes not far 
above, the capital of the Cjallic Santones whose name it has 
brought down to us from Caesar's time. 

Of Brouage, an antiquarian neiglii)or of it wrote three 
quarters of a century ago: "On a plain that the waves cov- 
ered twice a day, and along the border of a canal which brought 
into its midst the highway oi the ocean, salt evaporated from 
the sea was gathered and the vessels which came to carry it 
away left behind upon the bank the stones and gravel brought 
for ballast. Little by little a mound, not over 80 paces long, 

15 



rose above the level of the marshland and on it there settled 
a colony of salters, fishermen and sailors. This was the origin 
of Brouage, later made by Richelieu one of the naval strong- 
holds of the west and then depopulated by deadly exhalations 
from the marshes till now grass grows in the courts of its 
abandoned houses and trees rise among their ruins, spread- 
ing over them branches twisted by the ocean gales." 

In 1568 — the year after Champlain was born — Brouage 
was seized and held for the Sire de Pons, who took the side of 
the Catholic party in the Civil War, although Saintonge itself 
was strongly Huguenot. Two years later — when Champlain 
was three years old — it was besieged and taken by the 
Huguenots, who held it then for half a dozen years, when it 
was again besieged by the Catholics, under the duke of May- 
enne, and taken after months of resolute defence — the 
Huguenots, exhausted by privation, capitulating but marching 
out with arms and baggage, with drums beating and flags flying. 

Such were the times and scenes amongst which Champlain 
grew up, and such, with the sea, the influences which took part 
in shaping him, but the influence of the sea was strongest; of 
that he writes, in the dedication of his book to the Queen- 
mother in 1613; "Among all most excellent and useful arts, 
that of navigating has always seemed to me to hold first place. 
For so much the more that it is hazardous, and accompanied 
by a thousand wrecks and perils, so much the more is it es- 
teemed beyond others, being in no way suited to those who 
lack courage or self-confidence. This art it is that from my 
earliest youth has drawn me to itself, and led me to expose 
myself during nearly my whole life to the impetuous waves 
of the ocean." 

Sailing from de Monts' first colony at the mouth of the St. 
Croix — our present national boundary — to explore the 
westward coast, Champlain made his first landing within this 
country's limits on Mount Desert Island, close to Bar Harbor 
probably, on its seaward side — wherever he first found safe 
beaching or good mooring for his damaged boat, stove on a 
hidden rock, he says, on entering Frenchman's Bay. 

17 




SIEUR DE MONTS SPRING. THE ENTRANCE TO THE EMERY PATH. AND THE 
SWEET WATERS OF ACADIA — A MEMORIAL TO FRANCE 



Champlain describes the mountains of the Monument as 
he saw them then, with deep, dividing gorges and bare rocky 
summits, and named the island from them, giving it, in a 
French form, the name which it still bears, the "Isle des 
Monts deserts." 




The Desert and the Wilderness shall rejoyce, and the waste ground 

be glad and flovirish as the rose. 

—Isaiah xxxv: i. 

1583 Edition. 



GARDEN APPROACHES TO THE NATIONAL 
MONUMENT 

Mount Desert Island is remarkable for the vigor with 
which the hardy herbaceous plants that make the beauty and 
delight of northern gardens grow in favorable locations on it, 
and for their brilliant bloom. There, too, bloom follows bloom 
unbrokenly from spring to fall, keeping fresh the sense with 
constant change. 

To establish in connection with the national park — using 
the word, as elsewhere in this paper, in its popular sense — a 
splendid permanent exhibit of these hardy plants, gathered 
for their beauty's sake from the whole temperate world, has 
been from the first, like the wild gardens and the wild life sanc- 
tuaries intended in the park itself, an essential feature of the 
plan from which the park resulted. 

Nothing could be devised that would be more useful in 
furthering the development of a tn.ie art of gardening and 
landscape gardening in this country than such an opportunity 
to observe and study at their best the hardy plant materials 
which it must use. And nowhere else upon the Continent could 
a wider or more representative public be found to appreciate 
and profit by it than comes each summer to the Island — a 
public that will come henceforth in constantly increasing num- 
bers as the park, with its great waiting gifts of interest and 
beauty, is developed in accordance with the broadly formu- 
lated plans of the Secretary of the Interior and National Park 
Service. 

With this in view, an opportunity for such a hardy plant 
exhibit in the form of garden walks extending from the park, 
which occupies the Island's mountain range, towards Bar 
Harbor, its most general and famous point of entrance, has 
been secured, and plans for it are being now worked out. 



Two of the boldest mountain groups upon the Island bring 
the park within easy walking distance from the town. The 
eastern of these is that of Newport and Picket Mountains; 
the western, that of Dry Mountain and the Kebos. Against 
them both, facing abruptly to the north and east, the thrust 
of the arrested Ice Sheet in the Glacial period, as its huge mass 
moved slowly seaward past them, must have been tremendous. 

Evidence of it is not only visible in their rugged cliffs and 
precipices but in two deep basins ground out from the ancient 
Cambrian rock adjoining them. 

One of these, Beaverdam Pool, lies at the foot of Newport 
mountain; the other, the vSpring Heath — once a considerable 
lake but now completely filled with glacial clays and gravel 
peat and granite sands — reaches broadly out towards Bar 
Harbor from the eastern foot of Dry Mountain, forming a 
splendid exhibit of one of the most characteristic features of 
the north. 

Portions of primeval forest, with massive trunks of ancient 
yellow birch and hemlock, border still these basins on their 
side towards the mountain; both make superb approaches to 
the Monument; and both arc rich naturally in soil and water, 
in bird life and in plant life. 

The one under Newport Mountain, with its brook valley 
reaching to the public road, has been already deeded to The Wild 
Gardens of Acadia for a plant and bird sanctuary; the one 
beneath Dry Mountain, acquired by the Sieur de Monts 
Spring Company for protection of its waters and for its scenic 
beauty, has been placed beneath the same control, and offered 
freely to the Government to use as though its own in its ap- 
proaches and as a water source. 

The Heath basin especially is remarkable for a succession 
of deep-seated springs that rise apparently from a line of 
fracture between the granite and the more ancient sea-laid 
rock it shattered as it rose. Singularly pure, unvarying in tem- 
perature or volume, and brought down probably from far away 
by seaward tilting of an ancient coastal plain they make, with 
their free gift of waterto the passer-by, a unique, delightful fea- 

23 



ture in connection with the cHnibs that start or end along 
this base. 

These basins, of the Spring and Pool, with their interesting 
native life, their wild flowers, trees and ferns and the wild 
background of the mountains, are natural wild garden areas, 
and so should stay. But leading to them three hardy gar- 
den walks are planned, approaches to the Monument. The 
one upon the bay, or eastward, side enters from the Old Post 
Road at Compass Harbor Pond, in the midst of Iris and other 
hardy gardens, and follows up Compass Harbor Brook through 
the ravine which it has cut from deep deposits of the Glacial 
period until the latter loses itself in the upland which divides 
this watershed from that of the Wild Gardens' basin under 
Newport Mountain. 

This land, from Compass Harbor Pond till the divide is 
reached, has formed part till now, when given for the path, of 
the Mount Desert Nurseries' hardy gardens, and the beauty 
of the flowers which they have grown upon it, familiar to all 
who have visited the Island during the last twenty years, is 
a good earnest for the future, establishing, as do the many 
private gardens on the Island now, the remarkable possibili- 
ties of the soil and climate for such an exhibition. 

Much work has been already done upon this path, which is 
the result of a long studied plan. The pond from which it 
starts is itself a natural water garden, around whose edge 
the native flags and cardinal flowers and superbum lilies 
mingle delightfully with English meadow-sweets, purple 
loosestrife and Siberian irises, while in its water the fragrant 
native pond lilies grow along with hardy species from abroad. 
Above, in the ravine, picturesquely wooded, moist and shady, 
ferns and all kinds of shelter-loving plants grow wonderfully, 
while over the upland which succeeds it an apple-shaded walk, 
a dozen feet in width between alternately-placed trees, leads 
on to a grove of native thorns which marks the entrance into 
the Wild Gardens' tract beneath the mountain. 

Here, along this upland portion of the walk — sheltered 
from the wind by shrubbery plantations — the beautiful old 

25 



hardy plants of English and Colonial gardens — monkshoods, 
peonies and irises, larkspurs, phloxes, lilies, starworts, globe 
flowers, and a host of others — with their new companions can 
be grown in the deep soil with little care. Many of them, like 
the day lilies and the Solomon's seal, the lily of the valley and 
the peach-leaved bell-flower, become completely naturalized and 
often hold their own successfully against invading native plants. 

A mile to the west of this, another path — named in 
memory of Mr. and Mrs. Morris K. Jesup of New York, to 
whom Bar Harbor owes its beautiful Public Library and 
New York City its magnificent Natural History Museum's 
great endowment — leads from the neighborhood of the Build- 
ing of Arts, placed directly facing the nearer mountains of 
the Monument in one of the most beautiful situations in the 
world, down past the golf links with a fifty-foot strip reserved 
along its side for hardy garden planting; then drops to the 
level of the sheltered heath, which it crosses presently — 
shaded by maple woods — and passes on, skirting the Delano 
Wild Gardens and the mountain base, to meet the Kane 
Path and the entrance to Kurt Diederich's Climb at the outlet 
of the Tarn. This path, until the heath is reached, lies over 
cultivated farmland of an earlier time, with a deep soil and 
south exposure, and there is no better spot upon the Island 
for planting of the kind intended, nor a course more interesting. 

Between these other two a third approach — the Cadillac — 
is planned, starting from the Bar Harbor Athletic Field and 
Park, where the Government office is, and following up the 
brook that comes clown to it from the mountains and the 
Spring. Along this also remarkable opportunities exist for 
arboretum and experimental planting, while the wild fern and 
woodland gardens, succeeding to the open heath, which it 
will enter as it nears the Spring, show inider singularly favor- 
able conditions the range and beauty of the native flora. 

The plan for these approaches has been adopted only after 
long consideration and study of the plants intended to be 
shown, as well as of the landscape opportunity and soil con- 

27 



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ditions. It has received the warm approval, not only of the 
Secretary of the Interior and National Park Service but, 
of architects and gardeners and botanists of international 
authority and reputation. 

Among them all, none has said a better word of hopeful- 
ness and encouragement regarding it than the writer of the 
letter — written in the earlier stages of the undertaking —with 
which this paper closes, Mr. C. Grant LaFarge of New York, 
a director of the American Institute of Architects, trustee and 
secretary of the American Academy at Rome, an architect of 
wide experience who has made a lifelong study also of our 
native flora and these garden plants. 

George B. Dorr. 



Dear George: — 

The papers which you have asked me to examine, setting forth the 
project for developing a wild-life sanctuary and tree and plant exhibit 
and experiment station on Mount Desert Island, seein to me to 
describe a plan of comprehensive and striking interest. You ask me 
to tell you what I think of it. It appeals to me on so many sides 
that I can hardly deal with them all. As one long concerned with 
the question of preserving our native fauna in the only effective ways, 
such as game refuges and laws protecting migratory species, there is 
much I should like to say on this phase of the scheme as well as on its 
splendid aspect as a pemianent great natural pleasure ground for 
many people. But these I must pass by to emphasize a specific 
point which strikes me forcibly, in view of my professional convictions. 

Our community is aware but dimly, and in spots, of the tremendous 
strides being made in the art of architecture in America. Only those 
who, with open minds and trained eyes, contrast the body of our 
performance with its current equivalent in the Old World can api^re- 
ciate it, and realize that it is cause, not for boasting but, for ardent 
hope and constantly greater effort. Many forces are at work, among 
them none stronger than the rapid and sure elevation and increase of 
our educational methods. 

Along with our architectural advance must go that of the sister 
art of landscape design. There is no need for me to point out to you 
the intimacy of the alliance or the urgent necessity that equipment 
for the practice of the latter be, both theoretically and practically, 
of the fullest. 

No constructive art can achieve its full development while those 
who practice it think in terms of its expression upon paper, and not 
in tenns of the materials they have to use. There is only one way 
to gain the power to use these materials; that is, to have a close 
and comprehensive personal acquaintance with them. The more we 

29 



survey the great triumi)hs of landscape art in the Old World, the 
clearer it becomes to us that those who designed and built and planted 
them worked with knowledge and in sympathetic understanding of 
the natural surroundings and resources, the native flora of the region 
and the trees and plants that could be grown in it successfully ; that 
they were the very antithesis of paper perfoniiers, inspired by hazy 
views derived from the perusal of seductive catalogues. 

I have an invincible belief in our need for the completest study of 
past examples. I shall not rest until we have added a Fellowship 
in Landscape Design to our American Academy in Rome. But I also 
am sure that the men who are to do great work in this country — and 
our vision hardly tells us yet how marvellotis it may be — must 
know, to their fingertips, what this country ofters of trees and shrubs , 
and flowers and all growing things, and what may be done with them. 
When the\^ know this, and use their knowledge, we shall have Ameri- 
can gardens. To acquire this knowledge under present conditions 
is well-nigh impossible. The country is too vast ; its flora too scattered. 
Even the most superb examples of wild growth are but stimulating 
suggestions, not made available by opportunity for close study and by 
certainty of what transplanting, cultivation, care and breeding will 
accomplish . 

Your plan offers all this. If you succeed with it, I see all those 
who would equip themselves with what their art demands of them 
flocking to it from all quarters of the countr^^ It would be a god- 
send, not only to those who live in approximately similar regions — 
there is none just like it — but to those others whose li\'es are cast in 
far less interesting places, of dull topography and limited flora. I 
can think of no one thing that could be done in America, more greatly 
to contribute to and to advance the art and the practice of American 
landscape design. Good luck to you. 



January 22, 1014. 



Sincerely yours, 
(Signed) C. Grant LaFarge 




The White Mountain 
National Forest 

Crawford Notch in 1797 




PUBLISHED BY 

THE WILD GARDENS OF ACADIA 



THE WHITE MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST 

Herbert A. Smith. 

Forest Service Editor. 

The Federal Government is building up a National Forest 
in the White Mountain region of New Hampshire by the 
purchase of the necessary lands from private owners. As 
the lands are bought they are put under administration. 
The first land was bought in 191 3. By the close of 1916 title 
had been acquired to 205,289 acres, and arrangements had 
been completed for the purchase of 76,970 acres more. The 
total acquired or covered by approved contracts of sale at the 
opening of the summer of 191 7 is 375,000 acres. 

This is equal to about half of what may be called the main 
mass of the White Mountains — the region stretching from 
the southern base of the Sandwich range on the south to the 
Ammonusuc and Moose River Valleys on the north, and in- 
cluding the Presidential, Carter, and Franconia Ranges. Ulti- 
mately the Forest will probably reach a size of something like 
a million acres. This is about the average size of the National 
Forests which the Government has established in the moun- 
tain regions of the West, out of the public lands. It will carry 
the Forest northward over the moimtains beyond the Ammon- 
usuc and Moose Rivers as far as and including the Pliny 
Range. Some of the land already bought lies in this northern 
extension of the White Mountain region. 

The Government is buying up these forested mountains 
in order that all the interests of the public in their right use 
and protection may be fully safeguarded through orderly, 
intelligent development of their value. The Nation is taking 
over in the White Mountains a productive resource, in order 
that it may continue to be productive, and productive of all 
the public benefits which can be realized with skillful manage- 
ment. These benefits are chiefly the regulation of water 
suppHes, the sustained yield of wood, and the enjoyment by 
the people of the rare recreative and scenic value of the 



1 



■& 






region. To adjust and harmonize these diversified forms of 
use so that all may go on at once without needless sacrifice 
of one to another, and with preference for that of highest, 
public value where interests conflict, is the task which the 
Government has undertaken. 

Unrestricted private ownership of mountainous forest 
land risks the sacrifice of important public interests to indi- 
vidual interests, waste and impairment of the resources, and, 
in the end, widespread devastation. In the White Mountains 
recognition of the public loss began nearly forty years ago. 
The cutting of the virgin forests by limibermen and the ravages 
wrought by fire aroused inquiry for some method of protecting 
the interests of the public. But it was not until 191 1 that 
legislation authorizing protective measures was sectired. In 
that year Congress provided for the acquisition by the Gov- 
ernment of lands whose control would "promote or protect the 
navigation of streams on whose watersheds they lie" — the 
so-called Weeks Law. In accordance with this law, the Nation 
is now purchasing the White Mountain land, but much of it 
without the original stand of timber, and some of it so desolated 
by fire that the restoration of timber growth can take place 
only after the lapse of many years. 

Nevertheless, action came not too late to save the glory 
of New England's finest mountains, for the present generation 
and for all time. Scarred though their sides and summits 
are by occasional disfiguring breaks in the forest mantle of 
living green, dark-hued where the spruce and fir wrap the 
upper slopes, emerald and vivid below the evergreen belt 
where the hardwoods crowd into the conifers, they are still 
to the eye much what they were a hundred years ago. 

Even then visitors had begun to pilgrimage into the 
almost unbroken wilderness that stretched from the up- 
lands of the Connecticut Valley to the Maine border and 
from Winnipesaukee to Canada, to look upon the rugged 
"White Hills" in their lonely grandeur. These first pilgrims, 
forerunners of the tens of thousands who each summer now 
make the easy journey from point to point in luxury, found 
rude accommodation in the occasional cabins of pioneer settlers. 



In 1797, and again in 1803, President Timothy Dwight of 
Yale College rode on horseback up the Connecticut Valley and 
through the Crawford Notch. An account of what he saw is 
given in his "Travels in New York and New England," pub- 
lished in 1823. Settlement of the country back from the valley 
towns was at an early stage; the roads were of the worst, the 
houses few and scattered. Yet the ravages of fire had begun. 

"When we entered upon this farm in 1803," he wrote, "afire 
which not long before had been kindled in its skirts had spread 
over an extensive portion of the mountain on the northeast; 
and consumed all the vegetation, and most of the soil, which 
was chiefly vegetable mould, in its progress. The whole 
tract, from the base to the summit, was alternately white 
and dappled; while the melancholy remains of half -burnt 
trees, which hung here and there on the sides of the immense 
steeps, finished the picture of barrenness and death." 

Thomas Starr King refers in his admirable work, "The White 
Hills; Their Legends, Landscape, and Poetry," to the devasta- 
tion of Mount Crawford by a great lire which, according to 
"old Mr. Crawford," occurred about 1815. "The time may well 
arrive," he writes, "when careful records of these irreparable 
mischiefs, which destroy in their progress the very vitality 
of our mountains, and leave nothing but crumbling rocks, the 
shelter of a strange and spurious vegetation, — nothing but 
the ruins of nature — shall possess a mournful value." But it 
was not tmtil a much later day, when the lumbermen began 
to operate extensively in the pure spruce forests of the upper 
slopes, that the fire menace reached a point at which public 
sentiment became sufficiently aroused to demand with in- 
sistence some efficient remedy. 

It was the arrival of the era of the railroad which really 
opened the White Mountains to the public. Through the 
first half of the nineteenth century their spreading fame drew 
a slowly increasing number of travelers into the region, in 
spite of the obstacles presented by indifferent accommoda- 
tions and lack of transportation facilities. 

In 1819 Abel Crawford opened a footway to Mount Wash- 



ington, and in 1822 Ethan Allen Crawford opened a road along 
the Ammonusuc; these attracted attention and visitors. But 
in 1837, King tells us, the White Mountains were still a secluded 
district where the inns offered "only the homely cheer of country 
fare, and the paths to Mount Washington were rarely trodden 
by any one who did not prize the very way, rough as it might 
be, too much to search for easier ones." 

In 1840 the first horse was ridden to the summit. The dec- 
ade which followed was that in which railroads began to play 
a part in the economic development of the State. From the 
middle of the century on, the popularity of the White Moun- 
tains grew fast. 

In 1846 there was published in Boston "The White Moun- 
tain and Lake Winnepissiogee Guide Book"; and from 1849 to 
1859 there was an average of a new guide book a year for 
White Mountain travelers. One published in Concord, N. H., 
in 1850 makes mention of the Mount Washington House, kept 
by Horace Fabyan, as containing about 100 rooms, "new, 
light, and airy, the majority erected during the last two years." 
At Littleton, the White Mountain House, "one of the most 
pleasant and convenient stopping places to be found any- 
where on the route," is ."fitted up in the most modern style 
regardless of expense, and everything desirable or usual in 
hotels is there found." Between such points of resort stages 
ran regularly for the tourists. Even though the encomiums 
of the guide books are liberally discounted, they show how 
the summer visitors were coming in. 

In the period of prosperity and expansion which came 
in the seventies the number of persons in the East seeking 
summer recreation increased apace. The vacation habit was 
forming. By 1880 the commercial value to the State of the 
yearly influx of visitors and tourists had become fully recog- 
nized as of very great importance. At the same time, the 
development of private lumbering operations and the ravages 
of forest fires after lumbering were prodticing results that 
called forth vigorous protests against the despoliation of the 
forests and the marring of scenic beauty. 



In 1 88 1 conditions had reached a point which brought about 
action by the State. A commission was created by the legis- 
lature to inquire into the extent to which the forests were be- 
ing destroyed, and into the wisdom or necessity for the adoption 
of forest laws. 

The report of this commission pointed out that at least half 
the State was most valuable for permanent timber production, 
that the great waterpowers within and without the State 
demanded forest preservation, and that the scenic and recrea- 
tion value of the region was much too important as a State 
asset to be recklessly sacrificed. Thus the reasons for pre- 
venting the evils inevitable under private ownership and 
unrestricted exploitation of the forests were even at that time 
recognized. That nevertheless it took a full generation to 
secure a remedy was not for lack of knowledge of the need to 
do something, but because a course of action which would put 
a stop to the admitted evils and which public sentiment would 
support had not been found. 

In the meantime, destruction of the forest was advancing 
at a rapidly accelerating pace. In 1850 the reported value of 
New Hampshire's lumber cut was a little over one million 
dollars; in 1870, over four and a quarter million; in 1890, over 
five and a half million; and in 1900, nearly nine and a quarter 
million. And this progressive drain upon the forest resources 
of the State was accompanied by a change in the methods 
used, which made the lumbering more and more destructive. 

First the white pine was cut out. Then the spruce of the 
lower slopes bore the brunt of the attack. As the demand 
for lumber increased it paid to cut smaller and smaller trees, 
with the result that lumbering grew steadily more intensive. 
In the earlier stages, the cutting was to a large extent a pre- 
liminary to agricultural development. Since the forest in the 
lower and less rugged portions of the region was typically 
mixed hardwoods and conifers, or "softwoods," and since it 
was chiefly the latter which the lumbermen sought, the lum- 
bering in this form of growth did not as a rule strip the land. 
But as the century advanced towards its close, the loggers 



began to reach the pure spruce timber which protected the 
upper slopes. 

A rapidly developing pulp industry for the manufac- 
ture of newsprint paper opened a market for material too 
small for the lumber manufacturer. Moreover, when the 
scene of operations was the thin-soiled upper slopes covered 
with conifers it did not pay to leave anything behind which 
had a sale value, for whatever remained was likely to be 
blown down by the wind . The debris in the wake of the logger 
became a fire-trap of the most formidable character. Pro- 
tection against fire was not worth its cost to the private owner, 
whose interest was limited to getting all that he could from the 
existing stand. Left to itself, therefore, natural economic 
development could have but one result — the sweeping out 
of existence of the timber resource and the final desolation of 
the entire region above the hardwoods. 

It was the growing perception of this fact that brought the 
awakening of the public to a sense of what it had at stake. 
But how to apply a remedy was a difficult question. The 
State commission appointed in tS8i made its report in 1885, 
but proposed no constructive program beyond a plan for the 
inauguration of a system of fire protection of a primitive and 
inadequate character. A second commission, appointed in 
1889, reported in 1891 that the cost of State forest ownership 
on an extensive scale was too great to make this course prac- 
ticable. It did, however, recommend purchases by the State 
of "carefully selected sections of the mountain region, of 
small extent, to l~je held perpetually and so cared for and pro- 
tected that their natiiral wild attractiveness shall be per- 
manently maintained. ' ' 

An outcome of tlie report of this commission was the 
creation, in 1893, of a permanent State Forest Commission. 
Partly through purchase and partly through gift, the State 
has come into possession of a numljer of small tracts contain- 
ing in all about 9,000 acres. But by the beginning of the 
present century the logic of the situation was beginning to 
make clear that if the large problem was to be solved it must 




W ^ #' 3f 'u 



'^•^>)>^%^ -, 



:> 






' ^-^-Sti^t^itiV 




be solved quickly, and on broader lines than those along 
which State action could be looked for. 

Organized effort for Federal ownership began in 190 1. It 
was set on foot partly by residents of Massachusetts, who 
realized that the interests affected were not limited to New 
Hampshire. Two years later, the first bills providing for the 
purchase of lands in the White Mountains were introduced 
in Congress. But the plan at first found small favor. 
Forestry as a national undertaking was still in its early 
infancy, if indeed it could fairly be said to have been born. 
Some sixty-two million acres of "forest reserves" had been 
created in the West, but plans for putting their resources to 
good use had not been devised and only the most rudimentary 
administrative provision for their care had been made. 
In short, they were reserves in every sense of the word — 
Government property metaphorically placarded "Keep Out!" 
and locally unpopular as obstacles in the path of economic 
progress. The expenditure of Federal funds to buy eastern 
forest lands was regarded askance, as a proposal to embark 
on a new and dangerous policy involving both the use of public 
funds for local and uncertain benefits and the extension of 
government into a field of activity which it should not enter. 
Political orthodoxy was shocked at the thought of what might 
happen if national ownership and management of this form 
of property were to begin. 

Year after year the legislation was brought forward only 
to be defeated. It was soon combined, however, with the 
proposal for similar legislation in the southern Appalachians 
which had arisen independently still earlier. As the movement 
for Federal action gained strength, opposition was based largely 
on the ground that the bills were unconstitutional. But in the 
end the rising tide of public sentiment carried the law through 
— the so-called Weeks Law. By limiting the purchases to 
lands necessary to the regulation of the flow of navigable 
streams and providing for a determination of the fact that 
national control of the lands to be purchased would promote 
or protect navigation, the question of constitutionality was 
successfully met. 

15 



It was the interstate importance of the White Mountain 
region which from the outset furnished the main reason for 
Federal ownership. While the interstate character of the 
benefits aimed at was conspicuously in evidence in the matter 
of stream protection, it was by no means confined to this 
form of public benefit. 

As a recreational region, the Wliite Mountains, it was 
pointed out, have a large value for all tlie Northeastern and 
many of the Central States, forming as they do a resort for 
great ntmibers of visitors from Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, 
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, and other cities and towns of 
the populous territory east of the Mississippi. Similarly, the 
forests of the White Mountains are industrially important 
as sources of timber supply for manufacturing establishments 
in the States surrounding New Hampshire, whose products 
go into all parts of the country. But of outstanding signifi- 
cance was the influence of the White Mountain region upon 
the industrial and economic life of the New England States 
through its peculiar relation to their rivers, which are both 
arteries of commerce and sources of energy through water- 
power development. 

Back from the ocean, for myriads of years, the streams have 
been cutting, in their age-long task of remaking the face of the 
earth, towards this central elevation from which the waters 
drain east, west, north, and south. Upon the mountain flanks 
their tentacles rest like a network of shining threads, deepening 
their channels and bearing slowly seaward what short-visioned 
man sometimes calls the everlasting hills. The White Moun- 
tain uplift is a central citadel into which the drainage system 
of northern New England is pressing from all sides. Maine, 
Massachusetts, and Connecticut use the waters which New 
Hampshire feeds into the Androscoggin, the Saco, the Merri- 
mac, and the Connecticut. All four have their principal im- 
portance and use beyond the borders of New Hampshire. Pro- 
tection of these streams against irregular flows and silting 
through erosion was manifestly a matter of interstate con- 
cern. 



17 



These reasons for national action were reinforced by cer- 
tain special considerations. New Hampshire, a State without 
great cities or extensive manufacturing districts, lacked the 
wealth which would have permittted it to assume without 
heavy sacrifice the burden involved in acquiring promptly 
and protecting adequately the White Mountain lands. Con- 
ditions had, however, reached a point which made it plain 
that if the forests were to be saved immediate action was 
necessary. The lumbering of the higher and steeper slopes 
was beginning, with spectacularly ruinous results. On these 
slopes, which were generally covered by pure stands of spruce, 
the almost inevitable fires after lumbering left little in their 
wake but bare rock; for the slash was both heavy and inflam- 
mable, and the soil itself so largely made up of vegetable mat- 
ter that neither living trees nor seed on or in the ground nor 
anything in which trees could grow was likely to be left behind. 

The beginning of the remedial action was delayed for a 
time after the enactment of the Weeks Law by the careful 
safeguards embodied in the Law itself, to prevent ill-con- 
sidered purchases. Under these safeguards the Government 
has proved a good buyer, and it is believed that the lands 
could undoubtedly be sold again for more than they cost, were 
it desired to dispose of them. Thus the fears formerly ex- 
pressed in some quarters that a purchase law would permit 
private owners to unload on the Government on terms more 
advantageous to themselves than to the public have proved 
unfounded. The first purchases in the White Mountains 
were made in 19 13. As soon as the Government began to 
take title, plans for administration became necessary. Thus 
public ownership entered upon its final stage — that of or- 
ganization and development on constructive lines. 

The first requisite was fire protection. Organization of 
the territory into districts, each in charge of a forest ofiicer, 
provides the necessary leadership. Fire fighting in the woods 
is a matter in which the men of the Forest Service have become 
proficient through long experience. It was a simple matter 
to adapt to local conditions the methods which had been 

19 



worked out in the National P'^orests of the West. An elastie 
protective force is expanded to its maximum in tlie danger 
season, when a vigilant watch is kept by lookouts and patrol- 
men. The protective force of the State forester assists in the 
work. Trails and telephone lines have been built where 
existing means of communication were most inadequate to 
the need; in the White Mountains, however, there is less 
urgent necessity for the Government to equip the Forest with 
such improvements than there is in the National Forests of 
the West and South. Sales of timber are being made for the 
primary purpose of cleaning up the forest and securing a better 
growth of timber. Incidentally, the returns from such sales 
are already reimbursing a large part of the cost of administra- 
tion and protection, and are likely soon to equal the entire 
operating cost. 

All in all, though the work is so lately begun it is already 
effecting a very considerable change in the conditions. Not 
only has the progress of the forces of destruction been halted ; 
there is in evidence a marked gain. The protection given for 
the past four years has prevented any considerable damage 
from fire, and some of the slopes which five years ago showed 
bald rock are now green with on-c(^ming forest growth. 

Perhaps even more important in the long run than these 
tangible and material benefits of public ownership has been the 
stimulus to a larger and clearer realization of the value of the 
region which Government leadership in its protection and 
development is l)ringing about. The mere fact that a per- 
manent pul)lic enterprise lias lieen entered upon through the 
creation of the White Mountain National Forest has increased 
the number of visitors, and has reacted upon local sentiment 
regarding the responsibility c^f private landowners to the 
pul)lic for a certain measure of co-operation as a part of good 
citizenship. Fire protection is now general and heartily aided 
by all classes of local residents. It is easier to secure lands 
needed by the Government on terms not dictated solely by a 
spirit of narrow self-interest. The organizations which are 
actively working for improved conditions and l)etter facilities 



for enjoyment of the recreational and esthetic values of the 
region, of which the chief are the Appalachian Club and the 
Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, have 
been greatly heartened and strengthened by the creation and 
administration of the National Forest. In short, community 
participation in the project is a growing reality, and promises 
much for the welfare of the region. 

The influence of the enterprise is felt far afield. Late in 
1 916 the various trail-building organizations of New England 
met in conference and decided to correlate their efforts with a 
view to developing a trail system under a general plan of wide 
scope. It is proposed to link up in this way the lake region 
of Maine, the White Mountains, the Green Mountains, and 
even the Adirondacks and the Palisade Park and New York 
City. Thus the pedestrian, whose simple pleasure in explor- 
ing the shady by-ways of rural New England has been largely 
taken away by the march of progress in the form of road im- 
provement and whirring automobiles, may once again come 
into his own. 

The fish and game resources of the White Mountains will 
under national management undoubtedly be markedly aug- 
mented. The streams are already stocked to some extent with 
trout, and deer and grouse are fairly abundant in certain 
localities. But the control of hunting and fishing is at present 
inadequate, governed as it is solely by the general game laws 
of the State. Development of the wild life of the Forest as an 
integral part of its value to the public calls for carefully planned 
and close co-operation between the State and the Federal 
Government, to the end that the woods and streams may 
again abound in their natural denizens. 

The history of what has taken place in the forests of the 
White Mountains epitomizes in a broad way the history of 
the movement for forest preservation in the United States. 
Beginning with the first appearance of white men and the 
contact of civilization with the primeval wilderness, there 
was begun a struggle for subjugation of the forest in order 
to make room for settlement and community life. 



At first the timber was an incumbrance, valueless because 
of its abundance, and blocking development. Fires were started 
to aid in clearing the land, and even when they swept far away 
and laid waste the mountain slopes, the destrtiction which was 
wrought was lightly regarded. With advance in economic 
development and the knitting together of the country through 
a network of railroads came a period in which exploitation of 
the virgin forest became vigorous, extensive, and of a pro- 
gressively devastating character. Then a few far-sighted per- 
sons, at first regarded as impractical visionaries, began to 
urge the need for conservation of the forest resource for the 
sake of future timber supplies, for its influence upon water 
supplies, and for its value to the public in connection with 
recreation and scenic protection. 

Gradually public sentiment groped to a realization of the 
fact that private ownership of mountainous forest lands is in- 
compatible with the best public interest. With hesitancy and 
in the face of many misgivings as to the possibility of efficient 
management of public property through public officials, re- 
quiring, if it is to be successful, a high degree of intelligence, 
probity, and stability of policy, public ownership was under- 
taken. What the full measure of its results will be it is as yet 
too soon to say. That depends on the ability of the American 
people to maintain pemianently, as a Government activity, 
administration of a public resource, of increasing money value, 
without allowing it to be infected by politics or placed in the 
hands of men lacking in competence and foresight. Neverthe- 
less, it is scarcely possible that national ownership and man- 
agement of forests like those in the White Mountains can ever 
fail to do better for the protection of the public welfare than 
private ownership and management, without public regulation. 
The strength of the situation lies in the fact that there now 
exists, and is certain to continue, an alert and powerful public 
sentiment which will not tolerate the handling of the resource 
in ways that are seen to threaten the impairment of its 
value and its beauty. 



23 



NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS, 
Visited in 1797. 
Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College. 

On the morning of Tuesday, October 3, we pursued our 
journey. For some time before we set out, the wind blew 
with great strength from the northwest, in this region the or- 
dinary harbinger of rain. The clouds, rapidly descending, 
embosomed the mountains almost to their base. The sky 
suddenly became dark; the clouds were tossed in wild and 
fantastical forms, and poured down the deep channels between 
the mountains with a torrent-like violence; and the whole 
heavens were overvSpread with a more gloomy and forbidding 
aspect than I had ever before seen. The scenery in the 
Notch of the White Mountains, commencing at the distance 
of five miles from Rosebrook's, was one of the principal objects 
which had allured us into this region. A gentleman from 
Lancaster, perfectly acquainted with this part of the country, 
had joined us at Rosebrook's, and proposed to be our com- 
panion and guide through this day's journey, and to give us all 
the necessary information concerning the objects of which we 
were in quest. If we stayed in Rosebrook's, we should lose 
his company and information. If we proceeded on our 
journey, as the weather was, we should lose our prospects; 
many of the objects being at such a season invisible, and 
others seen with the greatest disadvantage. Happily for us, 
our storm vanished as suddenly as it came on; the wind 
ceased almost in a moment; the clouds began to rise and 
separate; and we commenced our journey in the best spirits. 

From Rosebrook's our road lay for about two miles along 
the Ammonoosuc, on an interval. We then began to ascend an 
easy slope, which is the base of these mountains. After pro- 
ceeding along the slope two miles farther, we crossed a small 
brook, one of the head waters of the Ammonoosuc; and within 

25 



the distance of a furlong we crossed another, which is the 
head water of the Saco. The latter stream, turning to the 
east, speedily enters a pond, about thirty rods in diameter, 
lying at a small distance on the northern side of the road ; and 
thence, crossing the road again and winding along the margin 
of a meadow formed by a beaver dam, enters the Notch. 
The northeastern cluster of mountains begins to ascend from 
the pond. The diameter of the meadow is about a furlong. 
The beaver dam was erected just below the Notch, in a place 
happily selected for this purpose. The mountains were 
scarcely visible at all until we came upon them. 

The weather had now become perfectly fine. The clouds, 
assuming a fleecy aspect, rose to a great height, and floated in 
a thin dispersion. The wind was a mere zephyr; and the sky 
exhibited the clear and beautiful blue of autumn. 

The Notch of the White Mountains is a phrase appro- 
priated to a very narrow defile extending two miles in length 
between two huge clift's, apparently rent asunder by some vast 
convulsion of nature. This convulsion was, in my own 
view, unquestionably that of the Deluge. There are here, and 
throughout New England, no eminent proofs of volcanic 
violence; nor any strong exhibitions of the power of earth- 
quakes. Nor has history recorded any earthquake or vol- 
cano in other countries of sufficient efficacy to produce the 
phenomena of this place. The objects rent asunder are too 
great, the ruin is too vast and too complete, to have been ac- 
complished by these agents. The change appears to have 
been effectuated when the surface of the earth extensively sub- 
sided ; when countries and continents assumed a new face and 
a general commotion of the elements produced the disruption 
of some mountains, and merged others beneath the common 
level of desolation. Nothing less than this will account for 
the sundering of a long range of great rocks, or rather of vast 
mountains ; or for the existing evidences of the immense force 
by which the rupture was effected. 

The entrance of the chasm is formed by two rocks, stand- 
ing perpendicularly at the distance of twenty-two feet from 

27 



each other: one about twenty feet in height, the other about 
twelve. Hah" of the space is occupied by the brook men- 
tioned as the head stream of the Saco ; the other half by the 
road. The stream is lost and invisible beneath a mass of 
fragments, partly blown out of the road and partly thrown 
down by some great convulsion. 

When we entered the Notch, we were struck with the 
wild and solemn appearance of everything before us. The 
scale on which all the objects in view were formed was the 
scale of grandeur only. The rocks, rude and ragged in a 
manner rarely paralleled, were fashioned and piled on each 
other by a hand operating only in the boldest and most ir- 
regular manner. As we advanced, these appearances in- 
creased rapidly. Huge masses of granite, of every abrupt 
form and hoary with a moss which seemed the product of 
ages, recalling to the mind the "Saxum vetustum" of Virgil, 
speedily rose to a mountainous height. Before us the view 
closed almost instantaneously and presented nothing to the 
eye but an impassable barrier of mountains. 

About half a mile from the entrance of the chasm we saw 
in full view the most beautiful cascade, perhaps, in the world. 
It issued from a mountain on the right, about eight hundred 
feet above the subjacent valley, and at the distance of about 
two miles from us. The stream ran over a series of rocks, 
almost perpendicular, with a course so little broken as to pre- 
serve the appearance of an uniform current, and yet so far 
disturbed as to be perfectly white. The sun shone with the 
clearest splendour from a station in the heavens the most 
advantageous to our prospect; and the cascade glittered 
down the vast steep, like a stream of Ixirnished silver. 

At the distance of three-quarters of a mile from the en- 
trance, we passed a l:)rook, known in this region by the name 
of the Flume from the strong resemblance to that object 
exhibited by the channel which it has worn for a considerable 
length in a bed of rocks, the sides lieing perpendicular to the 
bottom. This elegant piece of water we determined to ex- 
amine further, and, alighting fron^ our horses, walked up the 

29 




GLEN ELLIS CASCADE 



acclivity, perhaps a furlong. The stream fell from a height 
of 240 or 250 feet over three precipices: the second receding 
a small distance from the front of the first, and the third from 
that of the second. Down the first and second, it fell in 
a single current; and down the third in three, which united 
their streams at the bottom in a fine basin, formed by the hand 
of nature in the rocks immediately beneath us. It is impos- 
sible for a brook of this size to be modelled into more diversi- 
fied or more delightful forms ; or for a cascade to descend over 
precipices more happily fitted to finish its beauty. The cliffs, 
together with a level at their foot, furnished a considerable 
opening, surrounded by the forest. The sunbeams, pene- 
trating through the trees, painted here a great variety of fine 
images of light, and edged an equally numerous and diversified 
collection of shadows; both dancing on the waters, and alter- 
nately silvering and obscuring their course. Purer water 
was never seen. Exclusively of its murmurs, the world around 
us was solemn and silent. Everything assumed the character 
of enchantment; and had I been educated in the Grecian 
mythology, I should scarcely have been surprised to find an 
assemblage of Dryads, Naiads, and Oreads sporting on the 
little plain below our feet. The purity of this water was 
discernible, not only by its limpid appearance, and its taste, 
but from several other circumstances. Its course is wholly 
over hard granite; and the rocks and the stones in its bed, and 
at its side, instead of being covered with adventitious sub- 
stances, were washed perfectly clean; and by their neat ap- 
pearance added not a little to the beauty of the scenery. 

From this spot the mountains speedily began to open with 
increased majesty; and in several instances rose to a per- 
pendicular height, a little less than a mile. The bosom of 
both ranges was overspread, in all the inferior regions, by a 
mixture of evergreens with trees whose leaves are deciduous. 
The annual foliage had been already changed by the frost. Of 
the effects of this change it is, perhaps, impossible for an in- 
habitant of Great Britain, as I have been assured by several 
foreigners, to form an adequate conception, without visiting 

31 




CHERRY MOUNTAIN 



an American forest. When I was a yoiitli, I remarked that 
Thomson had entirely omitted, in his Seasons, this fine part 
of autumnal imagery. Upon inquiring of an English gentle- 
man the probable cause of the omission, he informed me, that 
no such scenery existed in Great Britain. In this country 
it is often among the most splendid beauties of nature. All 
the leaves of trees, which are not evergreens, are by the first 
severe frost changed from their verdure towards the perfec- 
tion of that colour which they are capable of ultimately assum- 
ing, through yellow, orange, and red, to a pretty deep brown. 
As the frost atfects different trees, and the different leaves of 
the same tree, in very different degrees, a vast multitude of 
tinctures are commonly found on those of a single tree, and 
always on those of a grove or forest. These colours, also, in 
all their varieties are generally full; and in many instances are 
among the most exquisite which are found in the regions of 
nature. Dift'erent sorts of trees are susceptible of different 
degrees of this beauty. Among them the maple is pre-eminently 
distinguishd by the prodigious varieties, the finished beauty, 
and the intense lustre of its hues; varying through all the 
dyes, between a rich green and the most perfect crimson, or, 
more definitely, the red of the prismatic image. 

I have remarked that the annual foliage on these mountains 
had been already changed l)y the frost. Of course, the dark- 
ness of the evergreens was finely illumined by the brilliant 
yellow of the birch, the beech, and the cherry, and the more 
brilliant orange and crimson of the maple. The effect of this 
universal dift'usion of gay and splendid light was to render the 
preponderating deep green more solemn. The dark was the 
gloom of evening, approximating to night. Over the whole, 
the azure of the sky cast a deep, misty blue, blending toward 
the summits every other hue, and predominating over all. 

As the eye ascended these steeps, the light decayed, and 
gradually ceased. On the inferior summits rose crowns of 
conical firs and spruces. On the superior eminences, the 
trees, growing less and less, yielded to the chilling atmosphere, 
and marked the limit of forest vegetation. Above, the sur- 

33 



face was covered with a mass of shrubs, terminating at a still 
higher elevation in a shroud of dark-coloured moss. 

As we passed onward through this singular valley, occasion- 
al torrents, formed by the rains and dissolving snows at the 
close of winter, had left behind them, in many places, perpet- 
ual monuments of their progress, in perpendicular, narrow, 
and irregular paths, of immense length, where they had washed 
the precipices naked and white from the siunmit of the moun- 
tain to the base. 

Wide and deep chasms, also, at times met the eye, both on 
the summits and the sides, and strongly impressed the imagi- 
nation with the thought, that a hand, of immeasurable power, 
had rent asunder the solid rocks, and tumbled them into 
the subjacent valley. Over all, hoary cliffs, rising with 
proud supremacy, frowned awfully on the world below, and 
finished the landscape. 

By our side the Saco was alternately visible and lost, and 
increased, almost at every step, by the junction of tributary 
streams. Its course was a perpetual cascade, and with its 
sprightly murmurs furnished the only contrast to the majestic 
scenery around us. 




Sieur de Monts Publications 



I. Announcement by the Government of the cre- 
ation of the Sieur de Monts National Monu- 
ment by Presidential Proclamation on July 8, 
1916. 
II. Addresses at Meeting held at Bar Harbor on 
August 22, 1916, to commemorate the estab- 
lishment of the Sieur de Monts National 
Monument. 

III. The Sieur de Monts National Monument as a 

Bird Sanctuary. 

IV. The Coastal Setting, Rocks and Woods of the 

Sieur de Monts National Monument. 
V. An Acadian Plant Sanctuary. 
VI. Wild Life and Nature Conservation in the East- 
em States. 
VII. Man and Nature. Our Duty to the Future. 
VIII. The Acadian Forest. 
IX. The Sieur de Monts National Monument as 
commemorating Acadia and early French 
influences of Race and Settlement in the 
United States. 
X. Acadia: the Closing Scene. 

XI. Purchas translation of de Monts' Commission. 
De Monts: an Appreciation. 
XII. The de Monts Ancestry in France. 

XIII. The District of Maine and the Character of the 

People of Boston at end of the 18th century. 

XIV. Two National Monuments: the Desert and the 

Ocean Front. 
XV. Natural Bird Gardens on Mount Desert Island. 
XVI. The Blueberry and other characteristic plants 
of the Acadian Region. 

XVII. The Sieur de Monts National Monument and its 

Historical Associations. Garden Approaches 
to the National Monument. 
The White Mountain National Forest. 
Crawford Notch in 1797. 

XVIII. An Old Account of Mt. Washington. A Word 

upon its Insect Life. 
A Word on Mt. Katahdin. 
XIX. National Parks and Monuments. 
XX. Early Cod and Haddock Fishery in Acadian 

Waters. 
XXI. The Birds of Oldfarm : an intimate study of an 
Acadian Bird Sanctuary. 



These Publications may be obtained by writing to 
THE CUSTODIAN, 

Sieur de Monts National Monument, 

Bar Harbor, Maine. 



' SUfPlY ««.. MSrON. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 315 313 6 



Hollinger 
pH S3 



